Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Books for Troops

When I was a kid, our bus stop was at a gas station that had a comics spinner. We'd load up on Icees and Thor and X-Men before school each morning. I say "we" as if I had friends, but it was mostly me.

Anyhoo, you don't see comics in spinners so much these days. You see paperbacks. Well, I do. Maybe you do. They have spinners of mass market paperbacks down at the library. Leave one and take one. They have shelves at another library. Leave two, take one. Paperbacks are a great form of entertainment you can just pass along to someone else.

In fact, groups are set up to do just that for our soldiers overseas. Here in the states, we just honored our fallen soldiers with Memorial Day. Other countries have similar days of remembrance. In Australia it's called Anzac Day. In Canada it's Armistice Day. In the UK, I think it's Boxing Day or something like that.

So, now is a great time to talk about helping out our soldiers overseas by sending them books to read. Jason Boog over at GalleyCat posted a link on How to share books with our troops. I'd suggest checking that out and sharing any other book-sharing charities you know about.

(For some reason, the post's title says "books & ebooks," which is some weird distinction. Also, the BooksAMillion folks have selected about a dozen books you're allowed to donate through their program. Would be nice to know how publishers got their books on that list. But those are for other posts.)
So, if you've donated through one of these programs, let us know how it worked out. Or if you use one of these or another program, please share that, too. I think I'll slip in a few Beta Ray Bill Thors as I'm putting a box together.

As the child of a veteran, I can tell you that those fighting for our country love getting stuff from home and love reading. So, have at it.

4 comments:

Hi Steve,It doesn't look like we made the cut on GALLEYCAT so wanted to let you know about Books for Troops Tampa Bay. We accept book donations from the public and forward them to our troops free of charge. Our mission is to enrich the lives of our heroes in uniform and we strive to acheive by shipping over seas and delivering to local VA hospitals. Soldiers place their orders via our facebook page and our turn around time is about 7 days. If your readers would like more info they can find us at www.facebook.com/BooksforTroops

When I was reviewing heavily, I got rid of my ARCs by emailing the author or the publicist and asking if they objected to dropping the books off at the soldier center here in Cincinnati, run by the father of an Iraq War Marine who went missing for several years. Never got an objection from an author.